The Dom of My Dreams: A BDSM Novel (11 page)

I laughed and looked up from my computer screen.
 
“No.
 
I met him yesterday for drinks though.”

“And?” she asked, shifting in her chair.
 
“How’s he like?
 
You know he’s got our future in his hands, something Alfred doesn’t get tired of reminding us.”

I shrugged in what I hoped was a nonchalant manner.
 
“He’s…interesting.”

She raised an eyebrow.
 
“Interesting?”

“Yeah, he’s…he’s a very forthright person.
 
He went straight to the point.
 
No bullshit.
 
He wants me to court him while he writes his new book.”

“And how long will that take?”

I shrugged again.
 
“Who knows?
 
I don’t know if he’s ever worked under a deadline.
 
I assume he has.
 
But now that he’s a free man, all bets are off.
 
We’ll just have to wait until he sees fit.”

Magda nodded while she blew into her coffee mug and took a tentative sip.

“So, how’s home life?” I asked, changing the subject.
 
I was trying very hard not to think about Seton, and talking about him was counterproductive.

Magda grimaced and waved a hand at me as if she were swatting an annoying mosquito.
 
“My mother’s coming over this weekend.”

“Again?”

She shook her head in annoyance, her short, blonde, Shirley Temple-like curls bouncing about her head.
 
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?
 
And here I thought I had finally gotten rid of her, that she’d leave me alone now that I’m married, but nooooooo!
 
That was only the beginning.”

 
I nodded sympathetically as we headed to the kitchenette to see if Rosie had brought in the morning muffins and bagels.
 

Magda Jones was my good friend at Bookends AtoZ after Jeremy and, in some ways, Alfred Williams.
 
She was a lovable heavyset woman with crinkly gray eyes and adorable dimples on her round cheeks.
 
She was thirty-seven years old, recently married to an equally heavyset man named Tom.
 
She was a hoot, especially when Jeremy was around.
 
She used to have a crush on Jer.
 
She loved his dark and handsome looks that reminded us all of Will from
Will and Grace
.
 
She eventually got over her crush after she realized that Jeremy wouldn’t be seeing the error of his homosexual ways and turn straight any time soon.
  
Now she saw him only as a friend, a friend she spent a lot of time bickering with, for they hardly ever agreed on anything.
 
She also hated that Jeremy made fun of her husband’s name.
 
His name was Tom Jones, and Magda grimaced whenever Jeremy hummed “It’s Not Unusual” at the water cooler.
 
“I can’t believe I used to have a crush on that asshole,” she’d complained to me one time.

 
“Now she plans to come over every other weekend,” Magda continued.
  
“Every other fucking weekend!
 
Can you believe it?
 
And she won’t stop badgering me about having kids.
 
The woman’s never happy.
 
First, she constantly nagged at me because I was single in my thirties and she was ‘worried’—”

“Because you live in Northampton and therefore might be a lesbian?”

“Exactly!
 
Now she wants me to have babies.
 
When does the nightmare end?
 
What does it take to be left alone?”

“Having babies?”

She rolled her eyes as she smeared grape jelly on a blueberry bagel.
 
“I wish!
 
If I have a baby boy, she’ll want a baby girl, and vice versa.
 
I will never be free.”

I laughed and understood her plight.
 
My mother had been behaving the exact same way lately.
 
She was “concerned” about my single girl status in a town largely populated by homosexuals and called regularly to see if I’d met “someone special” or to give me an I-won’t-love-you-less-if-you-turn-out-to-be-a-lesbian speech.
 
My mother lives in Hartford, Connecticut, which is about an hour drive away from Northampton.
 
The old gal ain’t perfect, God only knows she’s not, but I love her anyway, especially from a safe distance.

“Pretty!” Magda gushed suddenly, staring down at my feet.

Curious, I glanced down and spotted the object of her admiration.
 
My ankle bracelet and toe ring twinkled back at me.

“Where did you get that?”

“O-oh, um,” I stuttered, not knowing what to say.
 
“I—I bought it.
 
I saw it at a jewelry store at the mall and thought it looked nice, so I bought it.”

She smiled, a dimple peeking out from one side of her mouth.
 
“They’re beautiful!
 
Are those real diamonds?
 
That must’ve been quite a splurge.
 
They must have you cost a fortune!”

I was saved from answering by Jeremy’s appearance at the door.
 
“Alfred wants us.
 
Staff meeting.
 
Or, as I like to call it, a ‘let’s get together and talk about David J. Seton’ meeting.”

“Great,” I muttered, rolling my eyes at Jeremy.
 
I waited for Magda to grab her coffee and bagel and then charged into the staff room, which would soon become the David J. Seton worship room.
 
Magda showed my ankle bracelet and toe ring to everyone.
 
They all complimented me on how lovely the set of jewels was—all except for Jeremy, who just stared at the twinkling items on my left foot with a frown.

***

It was the longest day of my life.
 

           
I had waited to hear from Seton all day long and nothing.
 
He hadn’t answered my e-mail.
 
There were no text messages from him on my cell phone.
 
So I rushed home from work, hoping to hear a message from him on my answering machine.
 

“Why did you delete that scene in chapter four?
 
That was an awesome scene!
 
It was imperative to the story development…”

“Marjorie, it’s your mother.
 
You do remember you have a mother, don’t you?”

“Hi, Marge, I’ve got a question.
 
Do you by any chance know if people ate biscuits during Civil War America?
 
I’ve been doing research and haven’t found anything on that subject.
 
Call me pronto!”

Nada from Seton.
 
I sighed.
 

Fine.
 
Didn’t really care.
 
I had a lot of work to do anyway.
 
And when that was done, I’d do other fun stuff.
 
Like watch TV.
 
Read.
 
Pick at my toenails.
 
I would order greasy Chinese takeout and watch
Gone with the Wind
on DVD, and perhaps indulge in a chaser of chocolate and maybe even some wine, with one eye on Scarlett and Rhett and the other one on my BlackBerry.
 

I thought about joining Mitch for that drinking binge he’d planned on having later, but he would only want to talk about his ex-girlfriend and have sex afterwards, and I was so not in the mood for either one right now.
 
I sighed.
 
I had become one of those women I hated.
 
I was Cathy from the Cathy comics.
 
At any rate, I was just another sad single woman, waiting for a man to call.
 

***

“Have you gone gray yet?” Magda asked me.

           
“Gray?”

           
“Yeah, gray.
 
Gray hair.
 
Have you got any?”

           
“Uh, no, don’t think so,” I replied, making a mental note to check in the mirror for any strands of gray hair scattered around my head and…in other parts.
 
“Why?”

           
Magda groaned.
 
“I found eight this morning.
 
It’s not fair, Marjorie!
 
I shouldn’t be going gray already.
 
I’m only thirty-seven, you know.
 
Tom is forty-five and his head is full of lovely brown hair.
 
Why do women go through all this shit?
 
They—and by ‘they,’ I mean my mother—expect us to get married, have kids
and
be young and beautiful forever.
 
But nature is cruel.
 
We’re the ones expected to be gorgeous all the time, yet we’re the ones who age sooner.”

           
“Actually, I read somewhere that women age slower than men.
 
Something to do with biology.”

Magda snorted.
 
“Try telling
that
to my mother!”

I laughed.
 
“Man, you really are pissed off about your mother coming over, huh?”

“You think?”

           
A smile teased my lips.
 
“You get all philosophical whenever she comes over.”

           
She snorted softly.
 
“Pondering over the pains and hardships of womanhood is my coping strategy.
 
It keeps me from murdering the old hag.”

           
“You should write a book about it.”

           
“Not a bad idea.
 
You can edit it for me.”

           
I laughed again and cast a glance at my surroundings.

           
We were sitting on a bench, waiting for Jeremy to buy us lunch.
 
We were outside of the Academy of Music, a performance art school for kids, the best hangout and relaxing spot in Northampton.
 
There are benches, a garden, trees and a playground for kids to play.
 
The heart of the town square is in this tiny spot and you can see just about everyone walking by.
 
You see all kinds of people jogging, walking their dogs or simply lying around with their books and iPods.
 
Sitting on a bench outside of the Academy of Music is my favorite springtime pastime.
 
I always come here to relax and do some people-watching while enjoying the sounds of the leaves in the trees rustling against the cool, crisp breeze.
 
This is the sort of place one comes to relax…and to free oneself from obsessions and worries, at least for a little while.

           
“I come bearing gifts,” Jeremy announced, running toward us with his hands full of sandwiches and super-sized sodas.
 

           
“Where the hell did you go to buy that, Siberia?” Magda asked, scooting to the side to make room for Jeremy.
 
“Christ, I’m starving!”

           
“Hey, it’s lunchtime, what do you expect?” Jeremy countered.
 
“Place was full.
 
I’m not your personal servant, you know.
 
Next time, you get your own damn lunch.”
 

“The fag doth protests too much,” Magda muttered as she grabbed her lunch and passed mine over to me.